


holding on (letting go)

by hollyhobbit101



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And He Gets One!, Angst, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben is a Good Brother, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Ben Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25673467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyhobbit101/pseuds/hollyhobbit101
Summary: Here's the thing: Ben is not a brave person.SEASON TWO SPOILERS
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 14
Kudos: 214





	holding on (letting go)

**Author's Note:**

> really stressing the fact that there are major s2 spoilers in this work, don't read if you don't want them. i'm not 100% sure what this is but i guess it's being sad over ben hargreeves hours so here have some words.
> 
> title from the ross copperman song

Here’s the thing: Ben is not a brave person.

Vanya hugs him after their first mission, when he’s been dragged away to clean up before they are shoved in front of the press.

“I was so worried about you,” she says, clinging to him, heedless of the blood now beginning to stain her own clothes. “Were you scared, Ben?”

Ben hesitates. He wants to be honest - he’s close with Vanya, and he knows she would comfort him if he sought it. But Vanya is so young; the same age as all of them, but so much younger, so much more innocent. He doesn’t want her to know how he’d been trembling even before they’d arrived. How he’d hung back from the actual fighting until he was needed - or, rather, until the Horror was needed. It didn’t even matter if Ben was scared at that point because the Horror wasn’t, it had only been too glad to escape from it’s prison inside of Ben. 

“No,” Ben lies. He gives her a quick smile, which quickly disappears as their father steps into the room.

“Number Six!” he says. “Number Seven! End this nonsense now.”

And maybe if Ben were a braver person, he’d stand up to their father. 

(He’s not. He never is.)

* * *

Ben tries to stay out of family arguments. His siblings put it down to him being the ‘nice one’ - and to some extent that’s true. He’s not as hot-headed as Luther or Diego, nor as carefree or careless as Klaus. He never tells them how he has to be the nice one; he’s terrified of what the Horror will do if he gets angry. There is already too much blood on his hands.

He’d keep them all away with a ten-foot pole if he could; he never stops being scared for his siblings, scared of the insistent pushing on his abdomen every minute of every day. But being the nice one has it’s problems, and on several occasions he finds Klaus or Vanya at his door at night. 

“I wish I was like you, Ben,” Vanya whispers to him one night. 

Ben tells her she doesn’t; this is a familiar argument with Vanya. Tonight is different, though.

“You’re so brave,” she says, staring up at him earnestly. “I wish I could be brave.”

“You are,” Ben tells her. 

Vanya shakes her head. “Not nearly as brave as you.”

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s wrong. 

* * *

Ben doesn’t really remember his death. He remembers dread in the pit of his stomach when the alert came, how he’d begged Mom not to make him go.

(Not Dad, though, never Dad. Ben isn’t _that_ brave.)

And then - they’d arrived, they were fighting, his siblings standing back as Ben unleashed the Horror - 

\- it _hurts_ , oh god it hurts so much -

\- screams, the robbers’, his siblings’, his own, _he can’t stop it, he can’t -_

\- _Dad -_

(there’s a light in front of him, bright white, calling his name, _benbenben -_

ben takes two steps towards the light, but then there’s a different voice calling _benbenben,_ and ben chooses that instead because the voice is familiar but the light is not and he is so scared.

he never tells klaus this. maybe he should have)

* * *

Ben had thought - assumed, really - that death would grant him at least a semblance of peace. That he would finally be able to get away from everything that had suffocated him for his entire life. 

Except he can still feel the Horror pulsing away inside, desperate to get out even though it is dead along with its door. And then there’s Klaus, whose very existence sometimes seems engineered to cause Ben the most grief possible.

That’s unfair on Klaus, he supposes, but Ben is tired of playing fair. 

Besides, Klaus isn’t exactly fair on him, constantly drinking and taking drugs and partying and ignoring anything Ben asks of him. 

Ben had thought that being dead would allow him some form of special treatment, but apparently not. 

The light never goes away, always lurking in the corner of his eye, and more than once Ben considers going into it for good. Especially after he and Klaus argue, which is more often than not these days.

“Why don’t you just leave?” Klaus spits one time - or tries to. It’s not very successful considering he’s currently face-down in some alley, stinking of booze and high out of his mind. That he actually managed to get coherent words out is impressive, all things considered.

“Maybe I will,” Ben fires back, but they both know it’s an empty threat. Klaus thinks Ben is stuck here, held by some invisible tether tying the two of them together.

And Ben? Ben is a fucking coward.

* * *

Ben is not coming back from this.

Even before he possessed her, he could feel Vanya's power eating away at him and it’s all he can do to hold on to himself. Still, it’s not enough.

He’s coming apart at the seams, unraveling faster with each second. He does his best to help Vanya, but it’s too much. He can feel his soul breaking apart, and Vanya’s looking at him with such horror.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, comforting her for one final time. 

What’s left of Ben’s body is trembling, fear overwhelming him as he knows there’s no way to deny the light any longer. It’s coming for him, and _Ben is not coming back from this, oh god -_

“Can you hug me as I go?” he manages. “It’s been a long time since -”

Vanya pulls him close and Ben squeezes her as hard as he can, relishing the last human contact he’ll ever know. He’s falling apart, and he’s scared shitless, but Vanya soothes him, helps to calm his racing mind. 

“Tell Klaus it wasn’t his fault,” he whispers in her ear. “I was too scared to go into the light. He never kept me here.”

She nods, her head a comforting weight against his chest. Ben holds her close, holds her until he can’t anymore, until his vision goes white and -

Ben goes into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please let me know what you thought in the comments, or you can find me on tumblr @morganaspendragonss!


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